DIESEL PERFORMANCE ENHANCERS CAN ENHANCE PROFITS Top New Ways To Help Your Customer… By Steve Temple, Deb Murphy, and Dave Herrmeyer

The TS Performance Outlaw Drag Race & Sled Pull draws some of the fastest and most powerful diesel trucks, competing for big cash prizes and bragging rights in numerous drag racing and sled pull classes. The 2010 show is scheduled for May 7th and 8th and promises to be the most popular and largest diesel event ever. It includes an expanded vendor midway, featuring the top aftermarket manufacturers of diesel performance products. For more information visit www.tsperformance.com, or call 270-746-9999.

When gas prices shot up and truck sales tanked, consumers stopped buying trucks and associated ‘new truck’ accessories.

Even though fuel costs did drop back for a time, it is still smart to promote your company as “energy savvy,” a consumer resource for reducing fuel consumption and educating the public on conservation.

To help your company weather these tough times, we bring you the latest and greatest fuel savers applicable to diesel motors.

Check these products out, but remember that we have relied on manufacturer’s claims about improvements from mileage boosters, so as President Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify.”

Advanced FLOW engineering (aFe), has a stage 2 air intake system for the 1999.5-2003 Ford Super Duty with 7,3L Power Stroke Turbo Diesel that utilizes specially designed intake tubes designed to maximize air velocity and improve horsepower, torque, MPG and throttle response. The durable, one-piece 18- gauge powder coated heat shield blocks out engine heat and installs to the factory lower intake housing using factory mounting locations. 50-10062 is a value pack design and includes the Pro 5R filter, which utilizes 5 layers of progressive cotton media for maximum flow and also includes a PRO Dry S air filter which requires no oils to clean for maximum convenience. 75-10062 uses the patented Pro-Guard 7 filter, which utilizes 5 layers of progressive cotton media plus 2 layers of synthetic media that produces maximum filtration.

In recent testing, part number 50-10062 produced an astonishing 15hp and 32lbs. x ft. of torque and flows 51percent more air than the factory intake.

Another option for customers using synthetic oil is the aFe Pro Guard D2 oil filter with both diesel and gas applications.

For more information phone 951-493-7100, or visit www. aFepower.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

AEM’s Brute Force intakes can give any truck or SUV more air power for a better burn on the fuel mixture. Brute Force offers a variety of complete cold-air intake systems.

For more information phone 310-484-2322, or visit www.aempower.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

Banks Power is synonymous with engine efficiency and performance gains. They have turned their expertise to solve the fuel economy issue without sacrificing that performance. The answer is the EconoMind diesel tuner that works in concert with Banks’ free-breathing Ram-Air intake systems and Monster exhausts. The EconoMind delivers mileage gains as high as 20 percent, according to Banks. With mileage gains through engine efficiency, the EconoMind equipped diesel can still tackle long hills, short freeway on-ramps, and freeway passing.

For more information phone 800-601-8072, or visit www.bankspower.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

BD Diesel has a broad range of performance products for Dodge, Ford, and GM diesels, BD Diesel Performance also offers solutions for improving fuel economy. BD’s Cool-It Intercooler for Chevy LB7/LLY Duramax diesels provides up to 57 percent more cooling surface and can reduce temperatures up to 200 degrees F compared to stock intercoolers. With today’s high-performance diesel engines, compressed air heats up. Add temperature gains from an aggressive fuel curve and elevated boost levels and inlet temperatures soar.

Stock intercoolers, according to BD, are 70 percent effective in cooling inlet air, while BD’s Cool-It tops that with a 90 percent effectiveness level. The system features 36 percent larger inlet and discharge tubes, and can handle up to 100 psi of boost and over 1500 cfm while holding pressure drop to less than one psi. Plus, with over 780 sq. in. of frontal cooling area and nearly 2000 cubic inches of cooling volume, Cool-It provides 12 percent more area and 79 percent more volume over stock equipment. As for improved fuel efficiency, cooler inlet air results in increased engine efficiency.

In addition, BD’s Flow-MaX lift pump is designed to deliver ample fuel for more than 600 hp. With a hard-anodized aluminum body, the Flow-MaX is a more durable replacement for the OE pump. The unit mounts to the frame with vibration isolators and comes with all necessary hoses and mounting hardware.

To keep track of your diesel’s parameters, BD offers the new X2 Digital LCD Monitor, a companion to the company’s X-Power modules. The X2 monitors up to four parameters at a time, including exhaust temperature, boost pressure, transmission, engine water, and oil (on Ford’s 7.3-liter diesel) temperatures as well as fuel-rail pressure.

For more information, call 800-887-5030, or visit www.dieselperformance.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

Bully Dog has some performance products to get the most out of a diesel pickup. These include a new cold-air induction system with a cotton gauze filter, and the Watch Dog fuel-economy monitor that grades driving performance. So if your customer has a lead foot on the throttle, the Watch Dog will let them know so they can improve fuel efficiency. In addition, the company’s new Triple Dog downloaders can increase power on either gas or diesel engines, along with calibrating the speedometer for tire size.

For more information phone 866-285-5936, or visit www.bullydog.com . Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

Extreme Biodiesel’s product enables diesel owners to make their own biodiesel for less than a $1 per gallon. The process has just gotten easier with Extreme Biodiesel’s new Extreme Green Machine. This economical and portable processor received the “Best New Product Global Award” at the 2008 SEMA Show. It’s able to process 40 gallons in approximately four hours, and comes with a state-of-the art dry-wash filter, so no water washing, Ion exchange, or methanol rinsing is required. This processor is fully mobile with easy moving castors, and can be broken down to fit in as small a space as the cargo area of a small pickup or SUV. Who knows what profit opportunities might be available with this?

For more information phone 888-998-7223, or visit www.extremebiodiesel.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

Hypertech engineers and technicians have developed powerful tuning programs by adjusting the spark timing and air/fuel ratio to obtain the highest torque and power readings at a given engine rpm. Hypertech Power Tuning calibrations are extensively road tested under real-world driving conditions to verify their performance and engine efficiency benefits. The results can be very impressive. For example, Hypertech’s new Power Programmer III for Dodge Cummins 5.9L HO Diesels produced a gain of 285 lb/ft of torque and 174 hp, all without opening the hood!

For more information phone 901-382-8888, or visit www.hypertech.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

Superchips Tuners respond to all those recent fluctuations in fuel prices, Superchips has applied its performance tuning know-how to improve fuel efficiency as well. After all, if you can recalibrate an engine’s parameters for performance gains, you can do the same on the fuel-economy side. What makes all this even better is that the new Mileage XS upgrade results in some performance gains as well. It works on most late-model domestic trucks and SUVs.

Note that a recent long-term tow test demonstrated gains of nearly 20 percent in fuel economy using the company’s Cortex handheld programmer on a Dodge Ram diesel. Superchips and Richard Petty Driving Experience teamed up to verify fuel savings. The test vehicles were RPDE’s fleet of one-ton pickups towing 40-foot trailers with a payload of 13,500 pounds. A 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 with a 5.9-liter Cummins was tuned with the Cortex’s towing calibration, and nine comparable vehicles were left on the stock settings. After a year of touring the country in support of RPDE’s NASCAR show-car program, the Cortex saved 19.68 percent in fuel consumption with an added range of over 72 miles per tank. While saving on fuel, the Cortex boosted the Dodge’s output by 90 hp and added 200 lb/ft of torque.

The Cortex targets five key areas in each calibration level: fuel injection and ignition mapping, throttle position response, displacement on demand management, transmission shift patterns, and torque converter strategies. Each area is optimized across the entire RPM band.

Superchips Cortex is available for a broad range of Ford, GM, and Dodge vehicles, as well as the 2005–2007 four-liter Nissan Frontier and Pathfinder, the 2004 Nissan Titan and Armada, and Infiniti QX56. And with OEMFLEX capability, this same unit can be used to program a variety of different vehicles from the same manufacturer.

For more information, phone 407-585-7000, or visit www.Superchips.com. Please tell them you saw it in Trucking Times.

TS Performance MVP Module for 5.9-Liter Dodge Cummins Diesel is an example of the best of both worlds. The TS Performance module designed for 1998–2002 Dodge Cummins 24-valve diesel engines produces up to 100 additional hp while saving two mpg in fuel economy. To put those two miles in perspective, on a 25-gallon fill-up, you can get 50 additional miles.

The MVP intercepts the engine’s signals rather than copying and downloading a new program, giving the driver total control over horsepower level adjustments from inside the cab. Easily installed, the MVP allows your customers to dial in as much power as they need for performance, daily driving or towing applications without increasing exhaust gas temperatures.